VIRTUAL London.
Abstract
What are the potentials of activating landscape design and participatory design processes as means to explore the multifaceted and more-than-human perspectives of livability in social housing transformation projects? The notion of livability entails that practitioners engage in ways that bring forth interconnected dimensions and tensions within urban transformation processes while balancing demands from multiple stakeholders. We see such processes as an invitation to examine who a living space should be livable for and how we might ensure participation of more-than-human perspectives in anticipating visions towards irresistible and circular environments. We present a comparative case study contrasting two examples of social housing renovation and transformation processes, one in Latvia and one in Denmark. Both cases explore the potentials, challenges, and contradictions of including nature and landscape as important stakeholders by using design as an imaginative and future-oriented approach to evoke and anticipate what the social housing areas could become in the future. While the two cases pursue similar transformation principles, we shed light on conditions and experiences reflecting two contrasting local contexts. The aim is to enable processes that pave way for learning and experimentation and for participants and project leaders to engage with immaterial aspects like interconnectedness, power structures, community, belonging and biodiversity. We argue that such transformation processes are vital to opening debates about more-than-human rights to our living spaces, and how such perspectives connect with that of increasing livability in social housing areas.
Olivia Thomassen Harre – Postdoctoral researcher focusing on how design approaches can be a way of supporting complex transitions and balancing between various competing demands in futuring initiatives. Within her research she brings together experience from action research, strategy and design and is currently focusing on the potential of design and artistic processes to support more-than-human perspectives in urban futuring initiatives. Olivia is currently exploring such topics at the intersection of architecture, art, and design within the built environment on the EU project ‘DESIRE’.
Asbjørn Christian Carstens – Research assistant at the Architecture and Urban Design Section, Aalborg University. With a background in architecture, Asbjørns research takes its departure in the exchanges occurring between individuals and their environments as both physical and experienced phenomena by integrating perspectives from ecological psychology and the field of embodied cognition. His research explores the integration of phenomenological concepts like place, atmosphere, and experience within mixed-method frameworks to further the understanding of environments and living beings as interconnected entities.
Lea Holst Laursen – Associate Professor in Urban Design and Head of the Architecture and Urban Design Section, Aalborg University. Leas overall research focus is urban and landscape transformation focusing on place-making, urban and landscape planning, and site-specific development potentials. Recurring throughout her research is that of site analysis, exploring urban design mapping methods, most recently also including the use of drone imagery, as means of understanding the dynamic, relational urban fabric. Further that of combining user involvement with urban design methods is a throughgoing area of interest, investigating participation and foresight methods in the ongoing process of democratic future-making.
Hans Jørgen Andersen is Head of Department for Architecture, Design at Media technology. He has during the last been involved in national and international projects within architecture and urban design with a special focus on how these design processes can be supported by media technology, AI, and collaborative robotics. More recently his research also addresses the challenges in respect to the green transition of the built environment taking both human and more-than-human aspects into consideration.
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Thursday 27th June, 2024